Thursday night, hundreds of members of the technology elite—founders, investors, hustlers, hackers—gathered at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall for the sixth annual Crunchies Awards, a ceremony which celebrates private-stock valuations and product launches instead of box-office scores and film premieres.

When a handful of tech blogs launched The Crunchies five years ago, the notion of an awards ceremony for startups modeled after the Oscars seemed like a self-mocking joke—and indeed, few took it seriously at the time.

Fast-forward to 2013, and it's clear as day that the tech world has stars like Marissa Mayer, Mark Zuckerberg, Aaron Levie, Brian Chesky, and Kevin Systrom. And arguably, the digital products they launch on the world are far more important than the ephemeral celluloid narratives of Hollywood.

The Daily Show's John Oliver slayed the crowd.

Owen Thomas, Business Insider

John Oliver

VentureBeat's Meghan Kelly and Yelp director Keith Rabois introduced the first category. Many attendees took note of Rabois's public appearance, coming shortly after his shock resignation from Square, the payments startup.

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Meghan Kelly and Keith Rabois

NASA's Bobak Ferdowsi, flight director of the Mars Curiosity mission, accepted an award. His mohawk has its own Tumblr.

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Bobak Ferdowsi

TechCrunch's Ryan Lawler and angel investor Chris Sacca swapped jokes. Lawler's shirt was a visual jibe at Sacca, known for his fondness for Western attire.

Sequoia Capital's Roelof Botha was brave enough to make jokes about one of its portfolio bombs, Color, with GigaOm's Tom Krazit.

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Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom, up for several awards, looked serious in the audience.

Owen Thomas, Business Insider

Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom

Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann accepts an award, the company's second.

Owen Thomas, Business Insider

Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann

In a hilarious bit, TechCrunch's Jordan Crook and Benchmark's Matt Cohler pretended to walk off stage after realizing that Cohler, a venture capitalist, was presenting an award for bootstrapped startups that hadn't taken any institutional money.

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Techmeme's Gabe Rivera accepted an award.

Owen Thomas, Business Insider

Techmeme's Gabe Rivera

Box CEO Aaron Levie, the king of what everyone's dubbed "sexy enterprise," took the chance to blast Microsoft.